


Spider-Man

by MarvelDCProject



Category: DCU (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Spider-Man - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarvelDCProject/pseuds/MarvelDCProject
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liked "The Golden Age"? Then check out another corner of the Marvel/DC Merged Universe! This story chronicles the adventures of the Amazing, the Spectacular, the Sensational Spider-Man!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, True Believers! Red M here from the TvTropes forums! I've been a lifelong Spider-Fan, so I jumped at the chance to write my favorite superhero when this project came about. Hope you enjoy it!

## Prologue

One more minute, thought Dillon. One more minute and the deal was off, and he could go home. He tilted his wrist so that his watch caught the moonlight streaming in through the warehouse window. Fifty more seconds and the deal was off. Dillon shifted the metal briefcase in his left hand to his right.

The sound of sirens outside raised the hair on the back of his neck. Dillon slowly exhaled as the sirens faded into the night. He began to move toward the door, justifying his decision by thinking to himself that the man he was supposed to be meeting wasn't going to show. His hand was an inch away from the doorknob when a cold voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Leaving so soon, Dillon?"

Dillon turned around, and out from the shadows on the other side of the room emerged a man in a white suit. His face was covered by a lilac mask made of leather that exposed only his eyes and a small pair of glasses, and his hands bore lilac gloves of the same material. In his lapel was a single rose.

"Hello, Rose," said Dillon. "Drop time was fifteen minutes ago. You get held up or something?"

"Not really. My employer instructed me to see how long you would wait."

"A test."

"Exactly." Rose held up his own metal briefcase. "You passed. Now, on to business?"

Dillon nodded. "Open it."

Rose opened his case and held it for Dillon to see. Inside were stacks of hundred-dollar bills, bound by thick rubber bands. Dillon leaned forward to count the money, but stepped back and chuckled.

"I guess your boss would have to be pretty stupid to try and cheat my boss," Dillon said.

"And vice versa," said Rose, closing his case. "Now, your end?"

Dillon opened his case. Inside, cushioned by plush black felt, were two dark red gauntlets with silver rings running up the side. Dillon smiled slightly as he saw Rose's eyes widen.

Rose nodded. "All right, very good. Now, the exchange."

Dillon complied, setting his case on the ground gently as Rose did the same. The two men each took a step back, circling the two cases like predators until each of them reached the case the other man had dropped. Each of them slowly knelt, rose with their new case, and backed slowly toward opposite exits.

"Pleasure doing business with you," said Dillon.

"Likewise," said Rose. "Your employer will hear from mine again soon."

Dillon was halfway to the door when he heard the voice.

"Hey, this isn't the Al Anon meeting!"

Dillon wheeled around, looking upward in the direction of the voice. He glanced over at Rose, who looked back at him before quickly flinging the door open. As Rose dashed out, a white strand shot down from the darkness and splattered on the wall an inch from where he had been. Dillon turned around, breaking into a sprint. Not again.

Dillon pushed his body as fast as it would go. Not him again. Last night had been a close enough call. Not again. He was ten yards away from the door now. Maybe he was in the clear, maybe he'd gone after Rose instead! Maybe-

His train of thought was derailed when his whole body collided into something sticky. Dillon rebounded back and forth, his arms spread out and his legs suspended inches from the ground. Unable to move, his eyes darted around, and he realized he'd been caught in a collection of sticky threads, almost like an enormous we- oh, Dillon was starting to recognize the theme at play.

Dillon looked up as something red caught his eye. Descending upside-down on a thread in some sort of yoga pose was a lean figure in a tight red and blue getup covered in an intricate web pattern. Over the figure's face was a similar mask with two large eyepieces that glowed as they reflected the moonlight.

"Evenin', Maxie."

Dillon opened his mouth to say something, but accidentally let a strand of web fall into his mouth. He spat it out, causing the costumed man to laugh.

"Wow, this has just not been your week, has it?" he asked. "So, how about you tell me about the deal that just went down here, and- Oh! Oh, I forgot!"

The costumed man leapt upward into the shadows. In a few seconds, the floor around Dillon was illuminated by a red spotlight that resembled the man's mask.

"Ladies and Henchmen..." came a booming voice from above, "you've been hit by- you've been struck by- a smooth criminal? No! Just the Amazing, the Spectacular, the Sensational-," suddenly the man somersaulted from the shadows and landed in front of Dillon with his arms outstretched, "-SPIDER-MAN!"

Dillon scrunched up his eyes. He had to admit, this was preferable to the rumors he'd heard about the guy drinking the blood of his victims, but not by much.

Spider-Man pointed to the small spotlight projector around his waist. "So, what do you think of the Spider-Signal, huh? Pretty cool?"

Dillon made sure his mouth was clear of webs. "That's the gayest crap I've ever seen."

Spider-Man paused. He held out his wrist and used his other hand to tap the base of his hand. "See this web-shooter, Max? If I wanted to, I could shoot it right up your nose. The stuff takes about an hour to dissolve, you know, so no big deal."

Dillon stopped talking.

Spider-Man began to pace back and forth. "Well, now that I've got a _captive_ audience, why don't I tell you a little about myself? My mother was a spider. My father was a man, if you can believe it."

Dillon would've guessed a cop and a failed stand-up comic.

He continued: "So, I bet you're wondering how I knew about your little meeting, huh? Well, when I busted up your exchange last night, I saw you getting away, so while I was preoccupied beating up all those other guys, I slipped a tracker on you. I guess you could say I... bugged you. Eh-heh? Eh-heh? So, anyway, I've been-"

"Shut up!" shouted Dillon.

Spider-Man turned, his head turned almost quizzically. "What?"

"Shut up! You think you're funny? Tryin' to make a new friend? Would you just shut up and take me to the cops already?"

Spider-Man stared at Dillon for a few seconds, before leaping over the web holding Dillon. He landed behind Dillon, reached into Dillon's pocket for his cell phone, dialed 911, and began to wrap him in a cocoon of webbing. When he was done, he ripped the cocoon out of the web with one hand and attached it to the webline he'd descended on. He left Dillon hanging as he started toward the window, but hesitated, and turned around.

"You've killed people, haven't you, Max?"

Dillon struggled in vain to get free. "Yeah. So what?"

Spider-Man stared at him. Dillon blinked, and when his eyes were open, Spider-Man's masked face was inches from his. Dillon jumped.

Spider-Man grabbed the cocoon on both sides. "Have fun in jail, Max." He gave the cocoon a shove, sending it swinging around the warehouse. As he opened the window and slipped out, the sound of Dillon's screaming and eventual vomiting brought a smile to Spider-Man's face.

He sat on the warehouse's roof, looking out at New York Harbor. His mind was uneasy, but he put the thoughts swimming through his head to rest. At least for now, there was one less criminal making New York unsafe. Maybe, he thought, if he headed home now, he'd be able to get a decent night's sleep. But he immediately knew that wasn't the case. He hadn't slept soundly in almost six months.

The sound of sirens grew closer, and he knew the police were on their way in response to his call. He stood and looked toward the tallest nearby building, plotting out a course for the journey home. His legs bent, preparing for a jump, but straightened again in hesitation. He gazed out at the harbor again, watching the moonlight shimmer on the surface of the water, following the city skyline he'd grown to know so well. Then, in one swift motion, he ripped off the belt holding the miniature spotlight and hucked it into the bay.

The Spider-Signal had been a stupid idea anyway.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse inside the mind of our intrepid hero!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of the characters or concepts in this story belong to me. They all belong to either Marvel or DC. This is a fan-made project.
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!  
> -Red M

CHAPTER ONE

I’m in the lab again. It plays out like it always does. The tour guide gets to the row of cages and starts talking about all the animals in the lab and what amazing things they’ve discovered. Then I get distracted reading one of the placards about phenotypic selection, and before I know it, the rest of the class is twenty feet away, and before I even start towards them, I feel that pain on the back of my hand from the spider biting me.

Everything else after that plays out the same. The next few days at school, the wrestling, the mugger, the sirens, and the funeral. All of it plays out the same way it has before, no detail is left out. TV manufacturers wish they could create a picture this vivid.

Then my alarm wakes me up. I swear, one of these nights I’ll actually dream about something normal, like pink elephants or sex. Or some combination of the two- aaaaaand that image is gonna be popping into my head all day. Lovely. Today’s off to a great start already, if I do say so myself. 

I shower, throw on some clothes, and head downstairs to the kitchen. Aunt May’s hovered over the stove, flipping a pancake. She turns around and smiles at me.  
“Aha, you’re up! Sit down, take a wheatcake.” She motions to a stack of pancakes sitting on a plate on the table.

“You know,” I say, “I’m pretty sure you’re the only person on Earth who calls them wheatcakes.”

“My mother called them wheatcakes, my grandmother called them wheatcakes, and I’d be willing to bet her mother called them wheatcakes.” Aunt May sprinkles blueberries into the one on the stove. “I won’t break tradition just because some punk kid tells me my breakfast nomenclature is outdated.”

“I’m just saying, I don’t see how you get ‘wheat’ cakes from flour, eggs, and milk.”

She sets the last pancake down on the stack and turns off the stove. “You’re a pill, you know that?”

I take a bite. “Rumsh im va famry.”

Aunt May sits down now and takes a few pancakes for herself. “Of course it does. You, your uncle… your father was like that too. Always had a smart remark.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” I say. I can’t remember that much about my parents, actually. They died when I was five. Aunt May’s right, though. My dad always did like to joke around with me. One of the few things I can remember.

“You know,” Aunt May says, after swallowing, “your uncle told me once, he said he knew I was the girl for him when he realized I could match him pound for pound. He said not many girls could appreciate his humor, but one who could dish it right back, now that was something special.”

“Whoa.” I put my hands to my head in surprise. “It just clicked the hundredth time I heard that anecdote. It’s all so clear now. Now I see that you… never get tired of telling that story.”

“Eat your wheatcakes.”

I finish the last pan – sorry, wheatcake – on my plate and take another one. Aunt May usually doesn’t make these for breakfast unless it’s a special occasion, like my birthday, or when the Mets win a playoff game.

“So, why’d you make breakfast today?” I ask.

“Do I need an excuse to cook for my favorite nephew?” she says, without looking up from her plate.

“We’re out of cereal, aren’t we?”

“Yes. Well, almost. We still have Mini Wheats, but you know I don’t like Mini Wheats.”

“Wait, you don’t like Mini Wheats?” I think this over. “Then why do you keep buying them?”

“For you,” she says. “I thought you liked them.”

“No,” I say. “I’ve never liked them. But for as long as I can remember, there’s always been Mini Wheats in the cupboard. Why would-,” I stop short. Uncle Ben liked them, that’s why they’re in there. Aunt May’s come to the same realization, I can see it in the frown she’s got.

I hate reminding her of Uncle Ben. It’s bad enough that I have to live with his death on my conscience. I don’t like reminding myself that I didn’t just lose an uncle. Aunt May lost her husband, and both of us lost our best friend.

“So, that cereal was for Uncle Ben,” I say.

She puts on a smile. “I guess so.”

“Meaning that box of cereal has been in the cupboard for several months.”

Aunt May’s eyes widen. She swears under her breath, and I politely pretend I didn’t hear anything so unladylike come out of her mouth. Flinging open the cupboard, she grabs the box of cereal, holds it at arm’s length, and moves toward the door to toss it in the garbage can, mumbling as she does so. “Get this out… disgusting… should’ve known… funny smell was.”

When she returns, she strides over to the sink and begins to furiously scrub her hands. “Thanks for the alert. Now hurry up and get out of here, or you’ll be late for school!”

I grab another pancake from the stack before grabbing my backpack from the floor and heading to the front door. “Love you, bye!”

“Love you too, now go! You’ll miss the bus!”

Psh. Spider-Man doesn’t take the bus. Spider-Man got a sick-ass ride of his own. I head outside and grab the Spider-Mobile from where I left it, leaning against the garage. I walk it over to the street and hop on, tearing down the street.

Yes, the Spider-Mobile is just my old bike. Don’t diss it, it’s useful. After school, I can ride over to the bridge, stash it somewhere, change into my costume, and head into the city to get some swing time in. They say crime never sleeps, and it definitely doesn’t just take a nap at 4 PM. That’s why my after-school activities went from doing extra credit science projects to punching dudes in the face.

Ever since I got these powers, I started riding my bike to school. The ol’ Spider-speed guarantees that it doesn’t take very long. I’m not even winded when I get there. It’s been pretty great. Except that once, I accidentally snapped a pedal off from going too hard. One of these days, I’m gonna have to learn to gauge my strength better.

I stop at the crosswalk across from Romita High to let some pedestrians cross. At the intersection, a red convertible pulls up beside me. Don’t ask me the make or model, I don’t know anything about cars. In the driver’s seat is Flash Thompson, with Liz Allan riding shotgun. Her top matches his letterman jacket. She probably planned that. D’awwwww, that’s just so insipid.

Flash lowers the shades he’s wearing and grins. “Nice ride, Parker.”

I nod. “Zero to sixty in five.”

Flash chuckles and tears through the intersection as soon as it’s okay to go. Stupid Flash, thinks his car’s all that. Yeah, well just wait, Eugene, someday when I’ve got a Nobel Prize, maybe you can sell me a car used from the dealership you’ll be working at if TV is to be trusted and I hope for the sake of my schadenfreude it is.  
When I get there, I lock my bike at the bike rack and head inside just in time for the warning bell to ring. I head to my locker to throw some books in there, and then I’m off to my first class.

First on the agenda today is physics. I’m pretty sure I take more notes in this class than in any of my others combined. It’s not that I think it’s super-interesting or anything, but it helps to have some kind of knowledge of what I’m doing when I’m swinging around. I’m not saying I do equations in my head five hundred feet in the air, I just don’t want to be remembered as “that red-and-blue splat on the side of the Chrysler Building” just because I never paid attention in physics.

Next up is American History, which was all right because Mrs. Sheffield was feeling lazy and put on some History channel thing about the Intolerable Acts. If you ask me, writing a lesson plan that allows you to sleep off a hangover on your desk should count as an intolerable act. Eh-heh? Eh-heh? I’m so clever.

After that I have English, and then Spanish, where Kong Harlan laughs at the word “pupitre” for a solid five minutes. After that is Calculus, followed by lunch. I eat with some of the guys from my next class, Web Page Design. It’s pretty quiet, but I’m not complaining.

Then finally I get to the last class of the day, AP Chemistry. Going to this class is like finding an oasis. Chemistry – specifically biochem – has always fascinated me. It’s what I want to study in college. I mean, there’s not much that this high school course can teach the guy who makes his own web fluid in his basement, but it’s still nice.

I take my seat in the second row and take out my notebook. I glance over to the empty seat next to me. Everyone continues to file into the room and into their seats, and I look at the seat next to me again. No one’s there. Crap. Maybe she’s sick or-

The bell rings, and just as it does, a pretty blond girl with glasses comes through the door and sits down in the empty seat next to me. She grins at me. “Just made it.”

I smile. “Hey, Carlie.”

She sets her notebook on her desk. “What did you get for number two on the homework?”

“3.47,” I say.

“Okay, good, just making sure.”

Carlie Cooper was assigned to be my lab partner at the beginning of the year. We talk, about class, and …stuff.

…It’s not much, but it’s a start, okay?

Mr. Fenton comes in and class starts. Today we’re talking about salt bridges and batteries and other stuff. I don’t pay much attention. Carlie pays attention, though. She wants to be a forensic scientist. I bet she’d be good at it. She’s got her hair down today. It looks nice. I should tell her. Or I could keep doodling this pterosaur in my notebook. That’s less scary, let’s go with that. My crude pterosaur doodle now complete, I move on to a tribe of cavemen fighting it.

A folded scrap of paper lands on my desk. I unfold it. Written in nice, loopy handwriting, is, “Nice dinosaur.”

I look over at Carlie, who glances over and smiles.

Holy crap. Passing notes, according to pop culture, is one of those relics that a pre-digital world used for semi-flirtatious correspondence. Or so I’ve heard. Crap, what do I do? I tear off a scrap of notebook paper and hover my pen above it. I start to write, “Actually, pterosaurs were a separate group of reptiles that lived concurrently with some dinosaurs,” but I quickly scrunch up the paper and start over. Now is not the time to be pedantic. The purity of the taxonomy of long-dead animals must now play second fiddle to my need to not look like a tool in front of this girl. I write, “Passing notes, huh? That’s old school. Careful, or they’ll make you clap erasers after class.” I toss the note over when Mr. Fenton isn’t looking.

I hear Carlie unfold it, and it takes every ounce of my willpower to keep my eyes focused on the blackboard. After forever, she slips her response over.  
“I like to live dangerously.”

I smile when I get the note, and begin writing out my response. “A rebel, huh? Edgy.” I’m about to fold it up and send it over when I stop. Something compels me to write more. “Your hair looks nice.” That’s all I need to put down. Four words. “Your. Hair. Looks. Nice.” Write it down. Write it down, Peter. It’s easy. Just do it. Come on. You can do it.

The bell rings, and Carlie gathers all her things and stands up. “See you later,” she says.

“Hey, wait,” I say, and she stops and looks at me.

My mind goes blank. “Good luck with the homework.”

“Thanks,” she says. “You too.” And then she heads out the door.

I put all my stuff in my backpack and head out the door. Apparently, I didn’t gain the proportionate balls of a spider. Too bad. Eh, well, don’t worry about that for now, it’s the end of the day. School’s out. Time to get out of here.

I hurry out the front door of the school and head straight to my bike. Once I unlock it, I take off toward the bridge to Manhattan. I leave the houses behind me as I move toward taller buildings, until I reach the Queensboro Bridge. After locking my bike in a secure place, I find the nearest alleyway, make sure no one is looking, and then take all my clothes off. That’s right:

NUDIST MAN IS READY FOR ACTION!

I kid, I kid. I almost feel bad that no one can see the dramatic way I take off my shirt to reveal the spider insignia underneath, or the way I slip on a pair of lightweight boots and gloves, or the way I stash my street clothes in my backpack before slinging it over my shoulder and pulling a red mask down over my face with a grin.

It looks pretty freakin’ cool is all I’m saying.

I climb to the top of the building, and jump to the next one, and the next one. When I’m close enough, I fire off a web at the bridge and attach the other end to the building I’m on. From there, I run across my web like a tightrope artist.

After that, it’s just swinging across the bridge, between wires, from side to side, until I arrive in the concrete jungle of Manhattan, with skyscrapers on every side.

And that’s where the fun begins.


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for the introduction of the greatest supporting character in Spider-Man history. (Hint: It's not Mephisto.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My my my web makes me feel so grand  
> Makes me say, "Oh my Stan"  
> Crawling around New York  
> Deli on 39th sells great pork  
> Feels good! When you're swingin' round,  
> Coolest Spider-Man in this whole town  
> And I'm known as such!  
> And this is a beat, uh, you can't touch.
> 
> STOP! ... Swing Time!

**CHAPTER TWO**         

 

            Gotta love this city. Always keeps me on my toes. I stop three muggings before I’ve gone ten blocks. Seriously, three muggings! Who mugs at four in the afternoon on a W – wait, is that right? “Mugs?” I think so. Huh. Sounds weird.

            The first one’s pretty standard. Middle-aged tourist woman trying to take a shortcut through an alleyway, when a guy with a gun shows up and tells her to fork over her purse, her jewelry, her PIN, what have you. I web the gun, he looks up in surprise, I web him to the wall, the lady nervously takes her purse back, pretty par for the course.

            The second one goes about the same way. It’s a kid in a Yankees hat who didn’t listen when his mom told him not to wander into dark alleys, being menaced by a punk with a switchblade. Web, surprise, web again, I gave the kid a fist bump and tell him not to take shortcuts. He nods, his eyes bugging out of his head, and runs off. None of his friends at school will believe this one, I tell ya hwhat.

            The third one goes off the rails a little bit. I web the creep up like usual, but when I try to return the purse to the scared old lady, she hides behind a dumpster and throws rocks at me, shouting something about “the mutant problem” and how “I can’t fool her, she reads the papers.” I leave the purse on the ground and leave. Well, that last one might be my fault. I mean, I’m not exactly helping my image.

            See, there’s this newspaper in town – the _Daily Bugle_ – that really has it out for me. Always calling me a menace to society, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and a bad example for children. Yeah, I don’t know about that last one. Maybe it’s the tights.

            Anyway, this paper has a total mad-on for Spidey. Quick example. Last week, the front page of the _Times_ read: “Superman catches meteor.” The _Globe’s_ front page read: “Mutant rally in San Francisco erupts.” The _Bugle,_ meanwhile, ran with: “LOOK OUT!” and then below it, the subtitle: “Here comes the Spider-Man.” At least they got the hyphen right. I don’t know how they guessed there was a hyphen, but God bless them, they did.

            What came after that was a long, venomous editorial about how I’m secretly in cahoots with the mob, or the mutants, or that I’m just a publicity stunt for gay rights activists. Don’t ask me _how_ they drew that conclusion. Maybe it’s the tights. But the worst part was that the picture they went with – for page one, need I remind you – was some ground-level shot, looking upward, at what I assume is me. The picture makes it hard to tell. It could really just be a bird, or a plane, or a smudge on the lens. I decided something had to be done. So the other day, I brought Aunt May’s old digital camera into the city with me, webbed it to a wall, set a timer on it, and got some pretty impressive shots of me just swinging by. Very dramatic. So I figure I can sell these to the _Bugle_ , and hopefully improve my image. I mean, they’ll still print lies about me, but hey, at least the pictures’ll look nice.

            But that’s not the only reason. See, ever since I started being Spider-Man, I’ve had to give Aunt May some cover story for what I do after school. Up until now, I’ve just told her I was working on extra credit science projects, or that I was hanging out with friends. But that can’t last forever. There’s only so much extra credit a guy can get, and let’s face it, the whole “friend-have” thing was  a stretch to begin with. So if I get a job, or at least a regular thing selling photos to the paper, I’ll have an excuse to be gone all day, and a legitimate reason to have no social life. Booyah!

            That, and uh… there’s another reason. It didn’t dawn on me until a few months after Uncle Ben died. With him gone, I don’t think Aunt May’s job is enough to pay the bills. I mean, we had some savings tucked away, but I don’t know how much longer that can last. I realized I had to do something last week, when I saw a letter from the bank on the kitchen table. I didn’t want to open it. I didn’t want to face whatever was in that envelope. Part of me said it was just a bank statement, part of me said maybe they were just trying to use a free toaster to entice us to open a new checking account. But that other part of me pictured a letter that began with, “We deeply regret to…” and ends with, “you’re losing the house, have fun.” I just stared at it for a while until Aunt May came in, snatched it off the table, stuck it in a drawer, and hurriedly asked me how school was.

            So that’s why I’m doing this. It needs to be done. It’s just like Uncle Ben told me. “With great power comes great responsibility.” If I can do something to help, I should. It’s my fault we’re in this situation anyway. The only reason Uncle Ben’s dead anyway is because I was stupid and selfish. Maybe this can make things right.

            Yeah. Fat chance. I’ve punched out at least a couple hundred thugs in the last six months and I still haven’t come close to making anything right.

            But yeah. The paper benefits, my family benefits, and I find a job that pretty much only I can do, while having an excuse to zip out at any moment and head toward a Spider-Man emergency. Everybody wins.

            The _Daily Bugle_ office building comes into view. I drop into a thankfully mugger-free back alley a couple blocks away and open my backpack, pulling on my pants, socks, and shirt. Man, am I getting sick of long sleeves, but you gotta hide the costume somehow. I almost forget to take off the mask before I go. It goes in my left front pocket , while my gloves get scrunched up into the right one. I pop my slim digital camera out of the space on the front of my belt where that stupid spotlight used to be. Civvies on, camera ready, job waiting. All set. I just wish I could do something about the mask-hair.

            I take the elevator up to the 62nd floor, where I’m greeted by a receptionist. She finds me in the appointment book, smiles, and tells me to take a seat. I sit down and look through the photos in the camera.

            I hope these are good enough. I mean, it’s a pretty nice camera, but I don’t have any actual photography experience. What if they’re not good enough? What if they think the composition’s weird, or – don’t worry, don’t worry. It’s not like they can find someone else who knows where Spider-Man is at all times and knows exactly how to capture his good side. Relax.

            Awkwardly tapping my foot, I try to make eye contact with the receptionist. She looks up, shrugs, and says, “His meeting was supposed to be over five minutes ago. I don’t know where he is. Maybe he-,”

            “UUUUUUURIIIIIIICH!!” booms a gravelly voice from somewhere among the cubicles.

            The receptionist sighs. “Speak of the devil.”

            Something in her tone tells me that’s not just a turn of phrase.

            “URICH!” Coming into view around the corner of the nearest row of cubicles is a man with a flat top, salt-and pepper haircut, a square-ended tie, a fat cigar, and a mustache that apparently no one told him has been associated with genocide for the last seventy years. The look in his eye scares me at first, and I’m saying this as a guy who gets guns pointed in his face every day.

            “Ben Urich,” he continues, “either you get me what I asked for, or I-,”

            “Jonah, he’s not here,” sighs a middle-aged black man following him. His forehead is wrinkled. Can’t imagine how that happened.

            “Oh.” The cigar-smoking man turns around. He surveys the faces of his employees, all of them looking up from their computers. His voice softens. “Sorry to bother you, please continue whatever you were doing.” Then the look in his eye is back. “Now _where_ is that intern with my COFFEE?!”

            “Mr. Jameson,” the receptionist speaks up, “your 4:15 is here.”

            Jameson nods, offers a “Thank you, Miss Brant,” and keeps walking toward me. As he turns his head and looks at me for the first time, I can actually pinpoint the moment he notices I’m sixteen. His eyelids droop, his pace slows, his cigar hangs low, and one eyebrow raises slightly, as if to say, “Him?”

            I stand up, walk toward Jameson, and extend my hand. “Mr. Jameson, I’m Peter Parker, I called about the pictures of Spider-Man.”

            Jameson takes my hand and gives it one firm courtesy shake. “J. Jonah Jameson, Pulitzer-Prize-winning Publisher.”

            In that split second, my mind races to come up with a pun I can use combining the award and the mustache. Pul-Hitzler. Der Puhritzer. Give it time, I can work with it.

            “All right, let’s cut straight to it, I’m a busy man,” says Jameson. I hand him my camera, and he starts browsing the pictures. “Wait, wait, what’s this?” he asks, and turns the camera around, showing me a picture of a lovable red-and-blue figure leaping over a rooftop.

            “That’s Spider-Man,” I reply.

            Jameson goes back to browsing. “Huh. Weird. I mean, I’d heard he had one of those costumes, but… yeesh. So that’s Spider-Man?”

            “That’s Spider-Man.”

            “The guy vaulting over this flagpole.”

            “That’s Spider-Man.”

            “The guy shooting these webs out of his wrist.”

            “That’s Spider-Man.”

            “The zit-faced kid with the science fair project?”

            “That’s Sp- uh, that’s me when I was thirteen.”

            Jameson raises an eyebrow at me.

            “This… used to be my aunt’s camera.”

            “How’d you get these pictures?”

            “Right place, right time. I saw him coming toward me, and luckily I had my camera with me, so… yeah. Turned out pretty nice.”

            Jameson gives me a scoffing laugh. “Heh. Crap. Crap. Front page material. Crap. Crap. Page three material. Crap. Okay. Crap. Two hundred bucks for the whole lot.”

            Okay, Peter, be assertive. Stand up for yourself. If you can be assertive while hanging upside-down in a skintight costume, you can stand up to some yellow journalist. You got this. Counter-propose this _Schindler’s List_ casting call reject.

            “Two-hundred and fi-,”

            No, wait. Crap! You’re thinking small, Parker, thinking small!

            “Four hundred dollars.”

            Jameson’s teeth clench on his cigar. “Two-fifty.”

            “Three-twenty-five.”

            “Deal.” He turns his head and snaps his fingers at the guy in the nearest cubicle. “Leeds! Get this kid’s pics onto your computer. I want them in the morning edition tomorrow.” With a jerk of his head, he banishes me, and I take my camera over to Leeds, who produces a USB and begins to transfer the files.

            Just then, the elevator opens, and a bearded man with glasses steps out, carrying a binder under his arm. Jameson wheels around.

            “Urich! I told you to get me the scoop on that penthouse murder! Why is that story not on my desk?”

            Urich swallows hard. “Jonah, listen.”

            “Don’t tell _me_ to listen! I tell you to get me a page one story, and you’re out trying to prove some chubby philanthropist has mob ties!”

            “He does, Jonah!”

            “Spare me.”

            “It’s true! My sources-,”

            “Your sources, of course.”

            “Jonah, my sources tell me Wilson Fisk is using his philanthropy as a front! He’s dirty, Jonah! He’s got his fingerprints all over this city, and even into Gotham! I told you this! My friend, Murdock, he’s prosecuting an underboss I think might have ties to Fisk!”

            “Your sources mean about as much to me as the Stanley Cup Finals, Ben. Unless you can give me something real, I’m not printing anything. Now you get your keister over to-,”

            Urich shoves his binder into Jameson’s hands. Jameson stares at it for a second. “What’s this?”

            “Dirt. A paper trail. Something real. Or a start, at least.” Urich turns and heads back into the elevator. “You’re welcome. The penthouse murder was on Park Avenue, right?” The door closes behind him, and Jameson’s still thumbing through the binder.

            Finally, he hands it off to a passing employee. “Make sure Robbie sees this,” he says. “Tell him to remind me about it later.” He shakes some ash from his cigar into a wastebasket, and turns back to me. “You still here?”

            “I haven’t gotten paid yet,” I say.

            He nods, and reaches into his pocket for a checkbook. I make sure the check is accurate when he hands it to me. Don’t want to get shorted. Satisfied, I fold up the check and put it in my wallet.

            Jameson’s staring at me, waiting for me to go. “Well, pleasure doing business with you,” he says. “Now, uh, run along and, uh… beat it.”

            “Actually, Mr. Jameson,” I say, “I was wondering if I could ask you about a job.”

            His eyes scrunch up. “A job? We don’t need any more interns.”

            “I meant something more like photography.”

            He stares at me for a second, I guess trying to figure out if I’m serious, and then suddenly throws his head back, laughing. Holy crap, it’s even scarier than seeing him angry. He finally stops, and snaps back to the gruff tone he had before. “Are you out of your mind? You’re a kid. A kid who got lucky and took two half-decent shots. Get out of here.”

            “I could get more,” I say. “I could get more pictures, better ones.”

            “Yeah, right,” he chuckles, “what could you possibly – hey, Foswell, where are you off to?”

            A blond man with a neat mustache breezes past us on his way to the elevator. “There’s something going on at the CitiBank on 36th. Super-stuff, they’re saying. I gotta go!”

            I grab my backpack and rush to catch up with Foswell, saluting Jameson as I back into the elevator. “Duty calls… boss.”

            If I’m imagining that vein popping in his neck, then I love my imagination.

            “Listen, you!” he barks. “Palmer!”

            “Parker, sir.”

            “PAAAR-,” but he’s cut off when the elevator door closes.

            Foswell nods at me with one eyebrow raised. “You don’t even work here and he’s already yelling your name. Not bad, kid.”

            “Thanks,” I say. And as I reach into my pocket and feel the mask, I realize that even with the hassle it is sometimes, my job is pretty nice.

            And the photography thing ain’t bad, neither.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Age of Supervillains has begun!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how much fun I'm having writing this. Thanks to everyone on the TvTropes forums who accepts calling dibs as a valid claim to a project.
> 
> The following is a non-profit fan-based parody. Spider-Man, Spider-Man Z, Spider-Man GT, and all of the various Marvel and DC characters belong to their respective copyright owners, who last time I checked did not include Funimation, Toei Animation, Fuji TV, or Akira Toriyama. Please support the official release, because Superior's really getting good right now.

**CHAPTER THREE**

          Once the elevator stops at the ground floor, I ditch Foswell and find somewhere to change. There’s an alley not too far from here where I should be safe. I duck into the alleyway when no one’s looking, stuff my street clothes into my backpack, pull on my mask and gloves, and stick my backpack high up on the wall with a spray of webbing.

          Then I crawl up the side of the building until I’m a good ten stories up, and send out a webline to the building across the street. From there, it’s swing time, baby. I take off in the direction of 36th Street.

          Foswell said something about “super-stuff,” whatever that is. I honestly have no clue what he meant, but it sounded like something right up my alley. I mean, think about it. What could there possibly be that would fit that description? Superman, that’s what. What’s he doing at a bank in New York? It’s gotta be some promotional stunt. “Hey there, citizens! Open a new checking account and get your picture taken with me!” Man, I hope that’s the case. If he’s there, Jonah would pay through the nose for a good shot of Spider-Man shaking hands with Big Blue. Might even score me some positive PR.

          Hell yes! I’m meeting Superman! I’m already playing this scenario out in my head. I’ll drop in right behind him, clap him on the back, introduce myself, and he’ll tell me he’s a big fan of the job I’m doing to clean up the city. Then we’ll pose for some photos, develop a secret handshake, and add each other on whatever social network people like us use.

          Heh, I bet you Flash Thompson’s never fist-bumped Superman.

          Oh man, this is – are those sirens?

          I stop swinging and land on top of a building nearby. I can see the bank down the street, with squad cars out front, their sirens blaring. Cops are standing outside their cars, weapons drawn.

          Something tells me Superman’s not the super-stuff Foswell was talking about. Unless he’s going through some kind of rebellious bad boy phase, which would be really terrifying.

          I can’t exactly tell what they’re so worked up about. I mean, sure, it’s a bank robbery, but then what was Foswell talking about? There’s nothing super about this whole situation, it just seems like a normal bank heist. I’ve stopped one or two of those, no problem. I move to a closer rooftop, one overlooking the bank more.

          One of the officers on the scene picks up his megaphone. “We’re ready to negotiate. Let the hostages go and we can discuss terms.” He waits a few seconds. No response. He puts his megaphone down and starts talking to another officer nearby.

Wait, they’ve got hostages. Crap. What do I do then? Maybe if I can find another way into the bank, I can stay on the ceilings and try to Solid Snake my way around until I can figure out a way to – oh man, I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe the Fantastic Four can handle this. Maybe Batman’s in town. Maybe Superman can hear what’s going on, and take a few seconds away from stopping some earthquake in Peru or whatever it is he’s doing instead of taking care of this situation here. This isn’t my speed. If there’s hostages in there, I might mess this up. People might die. I can’t handle this, I’m a mugging guy, not a delicate situation guy! Why can’t someone else handle this? I can’t –

What. There it is again. This buzz. There’s a buzz in the back of my skull. This happened last week, when I was – everything’s moving in slow motion, my hand is moving in slow motion – when this guy shot at me. He missed, I’m glad to say. What _is_ this buzzing? It doesn’t hurt, it’s just – I have to move. Move forward now. I leap off the ledge, no idea why I’m doing so. It just feels natural. Instinctual.

Below me, I hear a scraping of metal on metal. Everything still moves slower. I look down, and the doors of the bank fly off, heading straight for the officer with the megaphone. Have to be quick. I spray off a web as quick as I can. As soon as it hits him in the chest, I yank, and he falls onto the pavement. One of the doors sails over his head, missing him by an inch.

I land on the street. Not the most graceful landing, but nothing’s broken, at least. The buzzing’s gone. The sirens are back at their normal pitch. I wiggle my fingers in front of my face. Everything’s back to normal.

“FREEZE!” shouts one of the officers, and suddenly, there are six different guns pointed at me.

Buzzing’s back, buzzing’s back!

“Hold your fire!” The officers all turn, and see the cop I saved. He picks himself up off the pavement, probably a little bruised, but not crushed by a giant steel door, so I guess I’m doing something right.

“Hold your fire,” he says, and starts limping over. He looks to be about mid-forties, blond hair going gray. The wrinkles around his eyes tighten as he sizes me up.

“And you are?”

“Spider-Man,” I say.

He pauses for a moment, with his mouth open like he’s going to say something, something like, “nice tights,” or, “I thought you’d be taller,” or, “what’s with the getup?” Instead, he just says, “Thanks for the save, kid.”

Great, I’m “kid.” Sure, I might be a couple inches shorter than him, and sure, my voice might have cracked really bad when I told him who I was, but still.

“I’m Captain George Stacy, NYPD,” he says. “You have any idea what’s going on in there?”

I shake my head, and he continues.

“We got a call fifteen minutes ago about a robbery. We’re pretty sure there’s hostages inside, but they haven’t been willing to negotiate.”

“Yeah, I could tell,” I say. “And what was that with the doors and-,”

“We don’t know,” says Captain Stacy. “Some sort of big shockwave. Shattered some of the windows on the first floor, see?” He points out the broken windows to me. “Think you can give us a hand?”

My eyes widen. “Yeah, uh, I, uh, think this might be a little… I mean, shouldn’t you be taking me in or something?”

Stacy raises an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, I’m technically a vigilante swinging around and dishing out spidery justice. I mean… isn’t that-,”

“Listen, kid,” he says, “technically, I can’t condone what you do. Personally, I appreciate what you’re doing for the city. You’re making my job a lot easier.”

Wait, what? “Really?” I ask.

“Well, some of the paperwork is a pain, but yeah. Now, can you help us out here? Backup’s too far out, and we can’t do jack about that shockwave thing.”

“You need my help?”

“Well, best case scenario is Superman shows up, but right now, you’re the best we got. Now, can you help us or not?”

I rub the back of my neck with both hands. “Sir, I reeeally don’t think I can do this. I’ll probably just botch the whole thing and get someone killed. I mean- I mean, I just- I would, but I-,”

“I don’t care,” he says. “If I say you’re the man for the job, you are. Right now, you're the only one who can deal with this, and if you have that power, then you-,”

A jolt runs down my spine. I know the rest. “I’ll do it,” I interrupt. “Get their attention for me.” Captain Stacy looks surprised, but he starts issuing orders to his men.

I leap a few stories up on the closest building, and from there I swing to the building adjacent to the bank. Below me, I can hear Captain Stacy on the megaphone again, offering the robbers one last chance to negotiate. Good. They’re distracted. Now I just have to find a way in. That skylight should do it. I don’t know why that wasn’t obvious to me before. I gently swing onto the roof of the bank, and quietly slide open a panel on the skylight. Captain Stacy’s voice drowns out any sound I make. The buzzing starts to creep up faintly again.

I crawl in through the hole in the skylight and stay on the ceiling where I can get a clear picture of the main room here. There are five guys in ski masks, automatic weapons pointed at the heads of terrified people. One woman looks up at me, and I hold my finger up to my lips to hush her. She looks back at the floor. Luckily, none of the robbers seems to have noticed.

Okay. You can do this. There’s one person in this city who supports you, and he thinks you can do this. So do this. Use that Parker noggin. Five guys. Five guns. Probably got five seconds at the most until the element of surprise wears off and they start shooting.

One of the robbers turns to the other. “Man, what’s taking him so long?” He gestures to a door on the far side of the room. “He’s been down there for like two minutes already.”

The other robber responds. “I know, right? This was supposed to be a simple job. In and out. I can’t believe the boss chose him to wear those gloves. That guy, lead the crew? He couldn’t lead a parade.”

Good, they’re talking. And both of them are facing that wall to my right, which means I can take them out last. The other three are first. Ergh, this has to be quick. Okay. Pep talk. Ready. Come on. Now!

I fire a web onto the barrel of the first thug’s gun. He barely has time to get out half a “Hey!” before I fire two more webs at the other two, and with a quick cross of my arms, send them slammed into each other, out cold. Oh, man, I can’t believe that worked. The other two have noticed me. They take their guns off of the hostages and start moving them up.

The buzzing in the back of my head blares, and I know right now I have to jump. I leap off the ceiling, twisting my body in midair, and watching as the two streams of automatic fire slip just under my arm and between my legs. Finally, I yank one goon’s gun away with a web and kick the other one in the stomach. He slumps over the desk and doesn’t make any more noise. I web him to the desk with his partner, and web the other two to the floor. The first one I disabled tries to rush me with the butt of his gun, but I snatch it out of his hands. His mouth hangs open.

I’m not entirely sure, but I think that’s what pissed undies smell like.

Okay, I can have some fun. I’ve earned this. I take the gun and hold it out in front of me with both arms, staring straight at the thug. Man, it’s gonna look really dumb if I can’t do this.

“Proportional strength of a spider,” I say. Then I slowly bend the gun until it looks like a black, metal frown, before dropping it on the floor with a clank.

The goon lies down on the floor, and I comply by webbing him to it. Okay. I did this. I did it. Holy crap, I did it! The threats are all neutralized, the people are all – are the people all okay? “Hey,” I shout, “is everybody all right?”

The lobby of the bank erupts into cheers and applause. The people move toward me from every direction. I can’t handle this. I leap onto the wall, out of reach of the crowd. They’re all talking over each other, thanking me over and over. Some of them are crying. A mother with a small child is holding him and telling him everything’s okay. I don’t shed a single, solitary tear at all. None. Oh, it’s so much to take in.

Just then, in the sea of voices, I hear an old lady yell, “What about the other one?” What was that? I shout and motion for the crowd to quiet down, and ask the old lady to repeat herself. “What about the other one?” she asks.

“Other one?” I ask.

She nods. “Yeah, he went down in the basement, toward the vaults. He was the one who shot the doors off the bank. He was wearing a costume like yours.” She motions toward the door the two robbers were talking about. “He went that way.”

Great. One more guy to go. And apparently he can tear doors off their hinges and shoot them fifty feet.

“Listen, I think it’s safe to go outside now,” I say. “Get out of here, but tell the cops to stay clear for now. Tell them your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is on the job, okay?”

The crowd cheers again, and I leap off the wall over toward the door that was pointed out. Gulping, I pull it open and head down the stairs. What awaits me is a room full of vaults, vaults with big, no doubt super-thick steel doors with little combination keypads and eye scanners. But that’s not the interesting part. At the end of the row, with his back to me, is a guy in a costume all right, but that old lady was way off the money, it’s nothing like mine. It’s yellow with a little diamond pattern all over, except for some red briefs, red boots, and a little red patch on top of the facemask.

He doesn’t hear me come down the steps. It’s no wonder he doesn’t know I’m here; I’m here now and I can’t here anything that’s going on upstairs. This guy’s standing in front of a vault whose doors are bent, crumpled almost, like they’re ready to fall off. He takes a step back, flexes his arms, and that’s when I notice the two metallic gauntlets he’s wearing. That must be what that thug was talking about when he mentioned “gloves” or something earlier, but I – hey, wait, a minute, those are the same as the ones that were in that briefcase last Thursday night! Yeah, those are the ones Max Dillon dropped off at that warehouse. The guy who bought them got away. Guess I know where they ended up.

The yellow guy thrusts his arms forward, his gauntlets glow blue, and suddenly, the room shakes. I almost lose my balance. All the air around those gauntlets of his looks distorted, and the doors of the vault start to give. They creak and moan, until finally they pop off entirely, slamming to the ground. The gauntlets stop glowing, the room stops shaking, and the man relaxes. The vault is open now, and the man steps inside. He looks around, from wall to wall.

“I don’t believe it,” he says. “Empty. What the hell is this?!”

Wow. Robbing an empty vault. This just isn’t his day, is it? I figure now is as good a time as any to make my presence known.

I shout at him, “Oh. My. Goody-goody-gosh.”

He stands up straight, his back still to me.

“I know who you are!” I say. “I know you!”

He turns around now, his quilted yellow mask scrunching in confusion.

“I don’t believe it!” I say. “It’s you! It’s really you! You’re that throw pillow on the couch in my living room! You came to life! This is amazing! It’s a Christmas miracle!”

He grunts loudly and punches the air in my direction. The gauntlets fire up, and I know to jump. Somehow, I know jumping is my best option here. I avoid the shockwave he sends at me, and land on an adjacent wall, singing in a comical old Brooklyn accent.

“ _There must have been some magic in that old silk hat they found…_ ”

He sends another blast my way, but I leap over it and kick him in the face. He stumbles backward, and aims another shockwave at me, but I’m ready, and I web up his gauntlets. If it worked with the goons upstairs, maybe it’ll work here.

It sort of works too well. The webbing over his hands carries the vibration from his gauntlets, and after convulsing, he collapses to the floor, a victim of his own feedback.

Well, that takes care of that. Nice try, buddy. You thought your little toys could stand up to a real, honest-to-goodness superhero, but they couldn’t. And now you’re – wait, what if he’s dead. Crap, crap, crap, no, please don’t be… oh, good, he’s coming to.

He moans and opens his eyes a crack. “Whmhammn?...” he mumbles.

“You all right, there, Pillowman?” I ask.

“Myy name isss the Shockerrrr…” he mumbles, and then he’s out again. Wow. The Shocker. He’s got a name for himself and everything. It’s like he’s a superhero, except dumb and a criminal. Like a supervillain or something. Oh my gosh, he’s a supervillain. Gotta say, if this is the best supervillain New York has to offer, we’ll never be able to match Gotham. This is just sad.

Oh, right! I almost forgot why I came here in the first place. I take the camera out from its slot on my belt, stick it to the wall with a dab of webbing, and set a timer. Then I pose dramatically with my foot on Shocker’s chest. How’s that for a page one pic, Jonah?

I put my camera away and sling Shocker over my shoulder, carrying him up the stairs until I can dump him on the bank’s front steps. Captain Stacy rushes up to meet me. The first question out of his mouth is, “What’s this guy wearing?”

I shrug. “Got me. He was the one behind the shockwave. He had some gauntlets that could… well, I saw them last week, it was some black market arms deal or something, or… uh, you might want to look into that.”

Captain Stacy nods. “Thanks for the tip. And thanks, for everything. You did good today, kid.” He holds out his hand.

I shake it. “My heart was beating out of my chest for a minute there.”

He chuckles. “Well, whatever you did in there, it worked. We owe you one. Anything you need?”

I look out over the street. There’s a news van assembled out front, and the cameras are rolling. People who were held hostage in the bank are on their cell phones, talking to their families and telling them everything’s okay. The sun is shining, the air is just warm enough, and I had wheatcakes for breakfast.

Part of me wants to answer, “Yes, I’ll take a medal and a parade, and if you have a hot daughter you could set me up with, that’d be great.”

But instead, I just say, “Nah, I’m good. Everything seems like it turned out all right.” I get a running start as I prepare to jump up the building next door.

“Can we count on you?” Captain Stacy calls. “The next time some bozo like this shows up?”

I look over my shoulder. “I’ll be there.” And with that, I’m up the side of the building and swinging back in the direction I came. I’ve got some pictures to sell, and some cash to earn.

But first, I’m gonna lie down on this rooftop and have the heart attack I’ve been holding in for the last five minutes.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is just dandy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, True Believers! Red M here with another chapter! Just to disclaim, I don't own any of the copyrighted material. So yeah. Enjoy!

**Chapter 4**

            The sun is starting to set by the time I swing back to the alleyway where I left my stuff _._ Quickly, I retrieve my backpack, put my clothes on, and then collapse my web-shooters into a space on the side of my costume’s belt. I sling my backpack over my shoulder, head into the _Bugle_ ’s building, and take the elevator to the 62nd floor. Miss Brant looks up as I come in.

            “Hi there,” I say. “Could you tell Mr. Jameson I’ve got more pictures like I promised?”

            “I sure can,” she says, and as I take a seat, she presses a button on the phone on her desk. “Mr. Jameson, Peter Parker’s here, he says he has more pictures.” The voice on the other end makes a series of growly mumbles and Miss Brant hangs up. “He shouldn’t be more than a minute,” she says.

            The elevator door opens behind me, and Foswell steps out. He raises an eyebrow as he notices me. “Back again? Did you get pics at the bank?”

            “Yeah,” I say.

            “Huh, guess I didn’t see you there,” Foswell says, taking the seat next to me.

            I’m tempted to say, “Or _didn’t_ you?” but my need to be clever and obnoxious comes second to my need to not be an idiot about my secret identity.

            Miss Brant’s phone rings, and she picks it up. “Right away, sir.” She sets the phone down, and turns to me and Foswell. “Mr. Jameson wants to see the both of you in his office.”

            We stand up and begin to walk down the row of cubicles, toward the door that has “J. JONAH JAMESON, Publisher,” on it in big, gold letters. The door swings open, and out comes the guy I saw trying to pacify Jameson earlier.

            “How is he, Robbie?” whispers Foswell.

            “Tread lightly,” Robbie whispers back. “Between Urich and the whole Spider-Man thing, he’s in one of his moods.” He turns to me. “Good luck, kid.”

            With Robbie’s cryptic message hanging in the air, I follow Foswell into Jameson’s office. The man himself is sitting forward in his chair, cigar clenched between his molars.

            “Cameras. Now,” he says, and snaps his fingers. We both set our cameras down on the desk. Jameson picks up Foswell’s first, and begins looking through the pictures. “Who’s that cop shaking hands with Spider-Man?”

            “That’s the police captain on the scene, Jonah,” says Foswell. “Apparently, Spider-Man disarmed the gunmen taking hostages and then beat up the leader of the gang, that guy in the yellow. He had some kind of shockwave machine or something. I got some statements from the police, if you want to see them.”

            Jameson sets Foswell’s camera down and starts looking through mine. After a few seconds, he turns to camera around to show the picture of Spider-Man posing with the Shocker.

            “How’d you get this shot?” he asks.

            Let’s hope I’m a good liar. “After Spider-Man set the hostages free, they all just sort of swarmed out of the bank, so I used the confusion to slip inside and get some pics right after Spidey defeated that guy,” I say.

            Jameson seems to buy it, and sets my camera down too. “Fred, you got a good shot. He’s on the steps of the bank, the sun is shining, it’s all very triumphant. Which is why I’m going with Parker’s.”

            Foswell nods in understanding, and Jameson continues.

            “Now, the other one shows the webhead and the yellow guy together, so I say go with that one. This just proves that they’re in on it together. Get this ready for tomorrow’s headline: ‘SPIDER-MAN IN CAHOOTS WITH ARMED ROBBERS.’ Make it happen.”

            What? He wants my picture just because- because it makes it easier for him to print lies about me? He can’t do that! He can’t get away with that!

            “Mr. Jameson,” I say, “Spider-Man _saved_ those people! He wouldn’t do anything like- I mean, he’s not working with criminals!”

            Jameson stares me straight in the face, takes his cigar out of his mouth, and points it at me for punctuation.

            “Prove. It.”

            I should throw him out the window. This guy acts like a jerk to everyone and shouts and throws a tantrum and gets his way, and he thinks he can just print lies about me and get away with it. I should teach him a lesson. I could. It would be easy.

            But I need the money.

My fists unclench, and I take my camera back from Jameson. “Take those photos to Leeds and get out of here,” he says. “Now, Fred, for page one, we-,”

            I shut the door behind me and take my camera over to Leeds, barely exchanging five words with him as he transfers my photos onto his computer. When he’s done, I head toward the front desk, where Miss Brant has my check and a sympathetic smile. Well, I can only use one of those, but thanks anyway, you’re a big freaking help. I wait for the elevator, until the door opens to reveal that reporter from earlier. Urich.

            He looks up from the papers in his hands and examines me. “Weren’t you here earlier? Why the long face, kid?”

            Making the lowest amount of socially acceptable eye contact, I look up slightly. “Your boss.”

            Urich grimaces and nods. “Say no more, say no more.”

            “Is he always like this?”

            Urich adjusts his glasses and sighs. He takes a while to come up with the right words. “J. Jonah Jameson,” he says, “is… a sharp reporter, an efficient publisher, and a proud father. But he’s not a nice man. In fact, he’s the meanest, nastiest old skinflint I ever met.”

            “But doesn’t anyone ever…” I try to sum up what I mean. “Doesn’t anyone ever call him out on anything? Tell him what a- what a jerk he is?”

            “Robbie tries. But there’s only so much you can say to a man who never listens. And Robbie’s just about the only person here who could say anything without losing his job.”

            “So- so he gets away with that? All the shouting and the lying about people and the... and the bullying? He wins?”

            Urich doesn’t say anything, but just looks at me. Finally, I go around him and get in the elevator. He turns over his shoulder to say something.

            “Only if you let him.”

            The elevator door closes, and I go into autopilot. I walk as fast as I can out of the ground floor lobby and into the nearest alleyway, where I strip off my clothes, stick them in my backpack, put on my web-shooters, pull on my mask, and take off.

            Beneath me, the city hums and blares. Car horns sound below. Those streets are full of people who think that being the loudest and the angriest is the way to get what they want. They all just yell and complain and expect to get their way. People like that, just everywhere.

            A bright orange streak to the east catches my eye. It continues on until it stops somewhere around the Baxter Building. That must have been the Human Torch. You don’t see that guy getting shot at to save a bank full of people. No, you just see him on the cover of magazines, modeling the hottest brands. Someone do this logic for me: tag along on an illegal space flight and you’re the toast of the town, get bit by a spider and spend all your free time helping people and you get vilified. That’s just perfect.

            Guys like that get everything. Fancy cars, girls, the adoration of everyone around you… And when they get older, it all stays the same. They still get the girls. They still have everything. Nothing ever changes. The guys who steal your lunch money and make fun of you every day in the halls grow up to be the guys who ruin someone’s image just to sell a few papers, or the guys who gun down old men and take their cars. All of them people who abuse power to get their way, and screw the responsibility. People like that never go away, and there’ll never be any way to deal with them. They win.

You know what? I’m done. I’m done putting my life at risk if all it’s going to bring me is trouble. I don’t see why I’m the only one who should have to put up with this. I’m done with this city. It’ll be just fine without me; it’s got plenty of other people to keep it safe. I’m done.

I will miss the swinging, though, but I think it’s a fair trade-off.

I swing across the Queensboro Bridge again, find a place to change into my clothes, and unlock my bike from the rack where I left it. The streetlights have just come on as I start to pedal back home.

Stupid Jameson. Stupid Human Torch. Stupid Flash. Stupid Shocker. While we’re at it, screw the guy who killed my uncle too. I hope all of them die in a fire. Yes, I am aware that probably wouldn’t hurt the Torch, thank you for pointing that out.

None of it’s fair. For sixteen years, I’ve kept my nose clean, done my homework, stayed away from drugs, been a good little boy, and the one time I decide to be selfish, someone I love dies. So I spend six months helping people, saving lives, and I get beer cans thrown at me. I get half a million readers thinking I’m a menace to America. It’s not fair! I’m the good guy here! Why doesn’t anything work? When am I gonna catch a break, huh?

Pink elephant sex. Damn it!

After about fifteen minutes, I pull in the driveway and leave the Spider-Mobile leaning against the house. I’m decommissioning it now. Now it’s just my bike. I hop up the porch steps and go inside.

“I’m home,” I mutter, dropping my backpack on the floor. I can hear the TV on.

Aunt May calls out from the living room. “Come here, come and see this!”

I head into the living room, place my arms on the back of the couch, and rest my head on them. Aunt May looks up, smiles, and presses play on the remote. The TV, now unpaused, shows the local news anchors.

“And tonight’s top story: a bank robbery in midtown Manhattan, foiled by an unexpected hero.” The scene changes, they’re showing exterior shots of the bank. Police weren’t quite sure how to proceed this afternoon when Herman Schultz, a criminal calling himself ‘The Shocker,’ disarmed bank security with his powerful shockwave-producing gauntlets and took the patrons of the bank hostage with his team of armed gunmen.”

Herman? I didn’t think I could _have_ less respect for the guy.

Now they cut to something else. It’s Spider-Man – it’s _me_ – dropping Shocker on the steps of the bank and shaking Captain Stacy’s hand. “But police had help from an unlikely source when costumed vigilante Spider-Man was able to disarm the gunmen and defeat Schultz before anything of value could be stolen.”

The scene changes again, and now they’re talking to Captain Stacy.

“We don’t quite know what the perpetrator was after. Looks like he blew open an empty vault. What’s lucky is that no one was hurt,” he says.

“And what about Spider-Man?” asks the interviewer. “What part does he play in this?”

Captain Stacy hesitates. “Technically, Spider-Man is a vigilante. But whatever his legal status, he’s the reason everything turned out all right today.”

The shot goes back to the anchors in the studio. “Well, Karen, it looks like it’s not entirely clear whether Spider-Man is hero or menace.”

“That’s right, Bob, and speaking of clear, could this new variety of cellophane cause cancer? More at ni-,”

Aunt May turns off the TV. I’m still staring at it open-mouthed. “So?” she asks. “No response? Really? Come on, I thought you’d think that was cool!”

I snap out of it. “Yeah! Cool!”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Honestly, you’re so blasé. We’re living in an age of marvels, Peter! Heroes, like Superman, and the Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man! It’s like it was back in the 40s! My mother used to tell me stories about all of those people flying around back then, fighting the Nazis, and now it’s all happening for real, again!”

I smirk. “The Nazis came back? When did that happen?”

She punches me in the arm. “Well, if you’re going to be like that, you can at least tell me where you’ve been.”

“Oh!” I scramble over to my backpack and reach in for the two checks I managed to squeeze out of Jolly Jonah. “I got a job,” I say, handing the checks to Aunt May.

Aunt May’s eyes widen at the checks. “There’s $750 here! How did you-?”

“I’m taking pictures for the _Daily Bugle_ ,” I say. “Freelance stuff, but it pays all right.”

“Pictures? Pictures of what?”

“Oh, you know, birds, trees, crime scenes, Spider-Man. Pretty average. I hope you don’t mind I’m using your camera.”

She laughs. “Not at all! But the _Bugle_? That rag? You ought to- wait, did you say you’re taking pictures of Spider-Man?”

I shrug. “Not like, officially or anything. I just kind of happened to be in the right place in the right time twice. But hey, if they’ll pay me, I might have to be in the right place at the right time more often.”

Aunt May stands up, straightens her mouth, and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Peter, just… just promise me you’ll be careful. I trust you, but just… be careful out there.”

“I promise.”

She’s about to let me go, when her eyebrows suddenly arch like she has an idea. “What made you decide to go work for a newspaper in the first place?”

I take a deep breath. “Well… ever since Uncle Ben died, I’ve been… worried that money might be tight, so I thought, hey, I’m living here too, and I can contribute, so why shouldn’t I leave our finances a little better than I found them, huh?”

Aunt May doesn’t say anything for a while, until she smiles and her eyes start to tear up. She hugs me tightly, and I can hear her sniffle on my shoulder.

“Your uncle would be proud of you.”

And then the waterworks start to leak. She lets me go, I wipe my eyes, grab my backpack, and head up the stairs.

“And don’t forget to keep up with your schoolwork!” Aunt May calls after me. “I don’t want this job to take up so much time that your grades start to slip!”

“This is me we’re talking about, after all,” I say with a smile. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

I go into my room, drop my backpack to the floor, and start to take off my normal clothes. I toss my jeans and shirt into a hamper full of dirty clothes, and look down at myself. Something’s missing. Reaching into my backpack, I pull out the gloves and put them on. Now? No, I look in the mirror and something’s still off. Once more into the backpack, and this time I pull out the mask and put it over my face. I look into the full-body mirror across the room and stand up straight, looking myself in the big, white eyes.

Is this going to be easy? No. But with Aunt May supporting me, and Captain Stacy working with me, it’ll be doable.

Is everything I do going to be met with acclaim? No. But the only praise I need is from a guy who liked Mini Wheats, and the Mets, a guy who I should’ve listened to more.

Are the jerks and the bullies going to stick around? You bet they are. But I’ve got something none of them have. Something that lets me do what none of them can do. Something that lets me do something good for the world.

It’ll take a whole lot more than that to get me to throw in the towel. I’m not going anywhere. I’m in this for as long as I need to be.

I’m Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, next chapter is going to be a little different, a bit more like the prologue. Just a quick heads up for all you readers.


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude before we get back to Spidey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, True Believers! Sorry it's been so long, but school really caught up with me. Now I'm done for the year, and I've got another chapter on the way after this! Enjoy!
> 
> \- Red M

**Chapter 5**

 

“…was able to disarm the gunmen and defeat Schultz before anything of value could be stolen.”

            “Turn it off.”

            The Rose obeyed, and switched off the TV. He looked over toward the window that spanned the height and width of this fiftieth-story penthouse, where a man stood, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the city and casting a large shadow on the floor behind him.

            The large man turned his head slightly. “Schultz hasn’t divulged anything to the authorities, has he?”

            Rose uncorked a bottle of Don Perignon and began to pour. “No, sir.”

            “Good,” said the large man. “Not that he knows much of anything. I suppose that’s one advantage to entrusting jobs like this to people so low in the organization. Of course, the disadvantage is that when you do so, they put on such amateurish performances as that.” He motioned behind him to the television. “The Shocker? Ridiculous. What was he thinking?”

            Walking over to the window, Rose handed his employer a glass. “Sir, if I may ask, what are you planning to do about our… supplier? You _did_ just try to rob him using weaponry he sold us, after all.”

            The big man smirked, holding the wine glass in between his enormous fingers. “I wouldn’t worry about him. We’ve reached an impasse. He can’t expose me to the authorities without incriminating himself, and any move he makes against me would only cause me to bring the law down on him. Of course, I can’t buy any more of his technology, but I think I’ve accrued a sizable enough arsenal to do for now.” He took a sip of wine. “Actually, I have to applaud his paranoia. Leaving that vault empty was a stroke of genius. A perfect red herring. I’ll have to remember that trick for the future. Though I have to wonder to where he moved it… the serum, I mean. Ah, well.” He turned over his shoulder. “There’s nothing to do now but learn from this setback, and move forward.”

            “Speaking of moving forward, sir,” Rose said, “what should be done about that lawyer, the one building a case against you?”

            “You’ll have to specify, Rose, there are altogether too many antagonistic, wide-eyed idealists with law degrees in this city for me to keep track of them all.”

            “Murdock, sir. The blind one.”

            A wheezy laugh came from the large man’s throat. “That one? If he becomes too much of a problem, send someone to kill him. I’ve bigger fish to fry.”

            Rose nodded. “With that in mind, sir, the underbosses are awaiting instruction on how to deal with the drug trade in Hell’s Kitchen. The last six drops were… disrupted, sir.”

            The boss turned away, his face now once again hidden as he scanned the skyline. “Daredevil. When he first started pestering me, I dismissed him. I thought he was just one man, and therefore inconsequential. It appears now I was wrong. I intend to rectify that error, and eliminate him. Put Bullseye on the job, I want it done right.”

            The Rose nodded, and turned to leave.

            “One more thing,” said the boss. “This Spider-Man who showed up at the bank heist today. He’s a fool, an amateur, and that’s how he was able to beat an amateur like Schultz. But he’s a dangerous amateur. I can’t afford to think of him as just one man. That’s the mistake I made with Daredevil, and I didn’t get where I am today without learning from my mistakes.”

            Rose drew his cell phone from his pocket. “Shall I dispatch the Enforcers, then, sir?”

            Wilson Fisk turned completely around and sneered. “Maybe I wasn’t clear. I want this spider to learn his place in the animal kingdom.”

            Rose’s eyes widened. He nodded, and dialed a number on his phone. After a few rings, the receiver answered, and Rose immediately issued a series of commands in Russian.

            Fisk turned back to the view of his city. Men in spandex and masks were a nice distraction for the public, he thought, but it would always be the men in ten-thousand-dollar suits and gold Swiss watches who had the real power. He drained his glass and smiled. Soon, his enemies would learn what real power was.


End file.
